The present invention relates to surgical equipment and more particularly to equipment for the disposal of surgical sponges in the operating room.
During a surgical procedure, numerous pliable and disposable articles, termed generally herein sponges, are used to absorb blood or other fluids encountered during the procedure. Personnel using the sponges toss used sponges generally in the direction of one or more buckets placed about the operating room to receive and store the used sponges. These buckets are termed kick buckets in that they are mounted on wheels to be moved by the foot about the operating room. It remains for an operating room nurse or technician to gather up and place in the bucket the used sponges, which, at the end of the procedure, must be tediously withdrawn from the bucket and counted to ensure that all sponges used during the procedure have been accounted for. After the sponges have been removed from the bucket and counted, they may be weighed to determine the amount of blood lost during the procedure. They are then placed in plastic bags for disposal. Besides being tedious, the presently used procedures expose the aseptic environment of the operating room to sponges which may be contaminated.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus by which sponges may be efficiently counted and disposed of.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus by which sponges may be counted and disposed of in a manner which improves the overall environment of the operating room.